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“Science writing as detective story at its best.” —Jennifer Ouellette, Scientific American

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year, a Scientific American Best Book of the Year, and a Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Ebola, SARS, Hendra, AIDS, and countless other deadly viruses all have one thing in common: the bugs that transmit these diseases all originate in wild animals and pass to humans by a process called spillover. In this gripping account, David Quammen takes the reader along on this astonishing quest to learn how, where from, and why these diseases emerge and asks the terrifying question: What might the next big one be?

Book Details

Paperback

September 2013

ISBN 978-0-393-34661-9

5.5 × 8.3 in
/ 592 pages

Sales Territory: Worldwide including Canada, Singapore and Malaysia, but excluding the British Commonwealth.

Other Formats

Awards

Endorsements & Reviews

“That [Quammen] hasn’t won a nonfiction National Book Award or Pulitzer Prize is an embarrassment…Timely and terrifying. Mr. Quammen, a gifted science writer, combines physical and intellectual adventure. He also adds a powerful measure of moral witness: ecological destruction is greatly to blame for our current peril.” — Dwight Garner, The New York Times

“David Quammen [is] one of that rare breed of science journalists who blend exploration with a talent for synthesis and storytelling.” — Nathan Wolfe, Nature

“Riveting, terrifying, and inspiring.” — Georges Simenon, Wired

“David Quammen might be my favorite living science writer: amiable, erudite, understated, incredibly funny, profoundly humane. The best of his books, The Song of the Dodo, renders the relatively arcane field of island biogeography as gripping as a thriller. That bodes well for his new book, whose subject really is thriller-worthy: how deadly diseases (AIDS, SARS, Ebola) make the leap from animals to humans, and how, where, and when the next pandemic might emerge.” — Kathryn Schulz, New York Magazine